I believe that the conversation matters. If in the attempt to realize the reign of God on earth, we cannot engage one another in respectful and grace-filled dialogue, we might as well not even try.

Wednesday, November 02, 2016

Citizens, Not Subjects - Election Day 2016 Post #3

Should a Christian voter
in the United States use the Bible to inform our election decisions? The first
and obvious answer is “Yes,” but I think there is a pretty important
distinction to be aware of first.

In the U.S., we are
citizens of a Republic. The people of the Bible were subjects in a monarchy or
an oligarchy. There is an enormous difference in worldview between these two
realities.

We have an ongoing
public conversation in our nation about the role of government in our daily
lives. We have reduced the conversation to terms like “less” and “more” or
“smaller” and “bigger.” Advocates for “less” or “smaller” government are those
who believe that government is over-reaching, over-regulating, and needs to be
refocused on a smaller set of priorities.

Here’s what is so
amazing - We can actually have this conversation in our country!!! Normal
people like you and me,because we are citizens and not subjects, can actually
talk together about what our government should be doing, and cast our votes
accordingly.

See that? Isn’t that
remarkable? Let’s not take it for granted. We can tell our government
what we think it should be doing. No one in the Bible or in the
Bible’s initial audience would have ever dreamed of telling their governing
authorities how “big” government should be! It was the governing authorities
who let the people know exactly what the government would be doing at any given
time.

At Gettysburg, Abraham
Lincoln said that “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom --
and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall
not perish from the earth.” That’s a pretty cool deal if you ask me, and an
idea that would have been quite foreign to people we read about in Scripture.

So back to the question:
Should a Christian voter in the United States use the Bible to inform our
election decisions? Well, yes and no.

It is possible for a
Christian in the U.S. to want our society to be more aligned with Scripture
(meaning more just, more peaceful, more loving, more like the Kingdom of God)
and also think the government is just not the best way to make that happen.
That person may vote very differently than a Christian with similar, or even
identical desires about our society who does think government is a
viable mechanism for making that happen.

In other words, two
faithful Christians who each take the Bible seriously and each love Jesus and
each think there are some serious injustices in the world that need to be
addressed might end up voting for different candidates, or voting differently
on various propositions or amendments.

And that’s okay! In
fact, it’s really brilliant! Having a wide, diverse array of perspectives among
our citizens is a part of what makes our nation go, gives us energy, and keeps
us accountable. If we didn’t have it that way, we’d be subjects of a single
authority, bound by our coerced allegiance.

What isn’t okay
is when we attack as “unfaithful” a perspective that is different than our own
or when we arrogantly claim that there’s only one way a follower of Jesus could
possibly vote. This is America, and that’s not how we do! Yes, citizenship is
messier that subjecthood, but freedom is inherently messy, and just because
it’s messy doesn’t mean it has to be ugly.